Suspected attack plans: radicalization in the youth room – terror suspect in custody

It is a classic multi-family housing estate, like those found in many German cities. The balconies are sometimes painted beige, sometimes green, sometimes red. Lots of green between the individual blocks. Now, in November, leaves from the surrounding trees lie on the lawns. Passers-by can be seen on the street again and again this morning, greeting each other. Some walk their dogs. There is nothing to indicate that investigators here, on the outskirts of Elmshorn, arrested a 17-year-old suspected Islamist attacker a few days ago and possibly prevented something bad from happening.

Since March, the Flensburg public prosecutor’s office has been investigating the 17-year-old, whose family lives in an apartment on the first floor of one of the houses. He was arrested last week. He has been in custody ever since. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the law provides for the application of juvenile criminal law for the accused in the event of a conviction.

Islamist attitudes lead to “sufficiently concrete” attack plans

The Flensburg public prosecutor’s office said in the course of the extensive investigation that the accused had become significantly radicalized. Its Islamist extremist attitude has recently resulted in sufficiently concrete attack plans.

The young person is a “German citizen born in Germany with foreign roots,” as the authority’s spokesman, Senior Public Prosecutor Bernd Winterfeldt, said. He did not provide any further details about the suspect, such as his family, given his very young age. He is accused of preparing a serious act of violence that would endanger the state and of conspiring to commit murder.

The investigation was initiated by the Federal Criminal Police Office and then the State Criminal Police Office. In this specific case, the investigating authorities received a tip, but also observed the 17-year-old themselves, said Schleswig-Holstein’s Interior Minister Sabine Sütterlin-Waack Sütterlin-Waack (CDU) in Kiel. “We are occasionally dependent on foreign services.”

According to media reports, communications were intercepted. “The investigations are of course heading in this direction,” said Winterfeldt. He could confirm that communication had taken place. Now it’s about identifying people. “Which may not be easy if they are abroad.”

It is currently not known where the suspect wanted to strike. “What can be said with certainty at the moment is that a larger crowd was the target. Other things had not yet been determined,” said Winterfeldt.

Sütterlin-Waack emphasized that, according to the current state of the investigation, a Christmas market was not the goal. “We have no information that this was an attack on a Christmas market.”

The SPD in the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament has requested a report from the state government for the meeting of the Interior Committee on Wednesday.

Memories of the attack on Breitscheidplatz are awakened

According to dpa information from Monday, the 17-year-old wanted to use a truck for his attack. The fact that the teenager is said to have planned an attack with a truck is reminiscent of the attack on December 19, 2016 on Breitscheidplatz in Berlin. At that time, an Islamist terrorist hijacked a truck and drove into a Christmas market at the Memorial Church. A total of 13 people died as a result of the crime, one of them as a result years later. More than 70 people were injured, some of them seriously. The assassin fled to Italy, where he was shot dead by the police.

Very young perpetrators worry authorities

Last year, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimated that Islamist potential was at 27,200 people, although only some of them were considered to be violent. The authorities are particularly concerned about very young perpetrators, for whom the process of radicalization often occurs particularly quickly. An example of this is the case of two young people who are said to have planned to use a truck to carry out an attack on a Christmas market in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The two were 15 and 17 years old at the time.